no it isn’t pathetic.. especially if you feel along with it. That story has many hidden truths, that you perhaps didn’t understand to be there. Check out the videos i uploaded as a sepparate comment here or write in google Firewatch Delilah’s dark secret… or letters of Dave and Ron.. or something like that. That game has one of the coolest stories you can fit into four hours of gameplay. Besides if you call a realistic problem like paranoid mind of stressed and traumatized man creating a conspiratory story to escape the reality, a basic melodrama, then what do you call the plots of other games, where plots are actually about conspiracy and over exagerated troubles?

Well, i too know few old ones that have really good story (Outcast for example), this doesn’t change the fact that i really enjoyed Firewatch and connected with it better than with most other games. i have to say that nowdays, game producers just don’t do new games with very good story to which you can relate as good as to best books. And of course there are lot of modern games with decent story that i like, but with which i still don’t get that emotional connection or in which the story may be good, but connection with real life and your actual self is pretty much absent (Like Deus Ex for example, that has a lot of thought provoking ideas and questions for player, yet stays distant in the sense that you just can’t feel what a guy living in a technology ruled future would feel. But with Firewatch most people should be able to connect quite in a personal level (i don’t mean like you would have to have felt how it is to have a wife in dementia, you just have to understand escapism. Firewatch should be taken as a story telling game.. pretty much a movie in the form of game.. and i saw it that way and therefore didn’t expect much of a gameplay. And Firewatch’s story is awesome. It makes you question and think along with it. It’s gameplay isn’t meant to make great decisions, but rather to look for answers both in game and inside yourself. And there is enough of unanswered questions for crazy amounts of fan theories, even when you have got through the story and read all the notes.many, many times.

A stunningly beautiful wilderness environment that expands as you explore.
A tailor-made story: the choices you make shape the narrative and build relationships
Well, it is still how your expectations made you understand it. They never said how much you can explore or how much the game world expands.. In game at first you can’t go to some blocked off areas at first, later you can.. And in general this game is still open world, even though very small open world. You are not forced on a certain path like in Walking Dead Telltale games for example.. you can freely explore the paths where you are not supposed to go at given mission.. by definition, that is explorable open world. It is your own fault if you interpreted these words into a great open spaces like in Skyrim or something like that
And tailor made story where choices you make shape the narrative and build relationships, doesn’t mean that it is supposed to be like proper role playing game. It just means that your dialogue choices can make someone more closer or irritated by these. And for example, if you are not answering to D or for example blame her in the end, then her way how she responds is different too. So, basically, everything they wrote there is kind of true, and you have your own expectations to blame. I didn’t expect much anything of this game although i had seen some vids about it, but when i played through it, i really felt that story (unlike the Walking Dead for example.. by the way, Walking Dead wants you to feel that your choices matter, but have you thought how much it is true or deception actually. Same like this game, it doesn’t build an infinitely arching story, but only lets you choose minor things like who do you save and whose support and trust you want to build up, but truthfully, the end result is still the same).

I understand playing a game for a story, but the story in this game is pathetic. It is like very basic melodrama.

I would say it is a good game too.. yet i wouldn’t say i have zero standards, because at the same time when i would give this game high praises, i would down-vote many games that have great fan bases like Mass Effect series, Skyrim, Dishonored, Walking Dead Telltale games, latest Deus Ex games. Perhaps i just expect different things from a game where story is important.

I think quite the opposite about the secret goverment plot being some crazy guy.. i would have actually found it lame if it would have been some conspiracy.. but finding out that a ex park ranger who went crazy because the death of his son and just is afraid to go back to civilization (or well, to jail), made great sense and was heart touching. What i didn’t like about the ending was how about telling about the boy, D was acting like”meh, i don’t care anymore about you, so just go to your wife and forget that we kind of grew close during the summer. I understand that she blamed herself, but i think that it would have been nice to give during that last talk through a radio just even a slightest chance that they actually would meet in a bar like she told few times. But well, i don’t hate it just because of that small thing.. quite the opposite, i love it for making me live through all these feelings in this game.

I disagree.. for me the story in this game was much more unpredictable and engaging (even relatable) than most other games produced lately. And sorry if the characters dialogue is such a disappointment for you just because you have lived through 80s (as you said you are guy in 30s.. so am i, i was born in 81 and some people even then were kind of like that. Anyway, i didn’t even care so much of what year it was played at.. for me it could have been contemporary day, a future, 89 or even 60s.. main thing was how the game just made me feel.. and as i have already said, it made me feel more than most games lately.

But what about Syberia, Beneath a Steal Sky, Monkey Island, The Longest Journey, Gabriel Knight, etc? There are a million games that have better stories but they also have gameplay. Firewatch is relying on people who only know the recent big games which suck.

well, i’m not casual gamer.. i play basically any game that comes to PC (at least try them, and mostly i’m disappointed about big highly rated epic titles. I liked the simplicity of that game, and it’s design and most of all the dialogue and story, even if it doesn’t affect the game or the ending.. it just felt like a captivating movie that just got produced in a game format. And even though i have played a lot of games, i know only few that have kept me feeling along the story as this game. There are of course some games with better stories, but not such short indie games with such amazing writing and art. For example many gamers praise Skyrim, and I just don’t understand why.. it feels distant and doesn’t create any feelings and its story is just another cheesy fantasy. And in my opinion that problem is true for countless games.. they just keep me feeling like it is just a game and i don’t care about the character or plot. But in Firewatch, i felt quickly that i become connected with H and at the end even kind of felt crush for D and was sad that i wasn’t able at least in text to choose to go to some bar with her like she wanted before. But like i said in my previous comment, it makes the story to feel even more sad.. so i understand why such ending. And of course there are things that could be improved, but i don’t know, i love this game already as it is.

But misleading people like you are why I wasted my money on this piece of crap.

I know the game left you feeling frustrated, but there is no reason to take it out on me. I enjoyed the game…until the end.

Cheer up, there are plenty more games to play 🙂

It is strange. I see a lot of players who like it too but I am convinced they are casual gamers who don’t know the countless other games they could have bought with better story and better gameplay.

I honestly don’t know. I think there is a big disconnect between traditional game reviewers and the general gaming audience.

I think his problem is that he wasted 3 hours on this piece of crap game that people with zero standards told him was “great”.

Why do you think the reviewers are so desperate to like this game? If it is the “indie darling” thing, there are thousands of other ones they could act hip to support instead.

How can you call this a great game? It is absolute crap and you even explained why in your post and yet you still call it a “great game.” It is people like you that allow games like this to exist. There were only 3 things that you liked and they weren’t legitimate anyway. There were no meaningful choices at all, it asks you a bunch of inane questions that only have a few options and then most of it is never referenced again in the entire game. The few things that do get referenced are things like, what is the name of your dog, “Max, Bob, Mr Snuggles” big deal, you got to name a dog that you never see and isn’t in the game in any way. The banter was ok, but there are 1000 TV shows you could be watching right now that have better. And the color scheme, meh.